chip1

a small, slender piece, as of wood, separated by chopping, cutting, or breaking.

2.

a very thin slice or small piece of food, candy, etc.:

chocolate chips.

3.

a mark or flaw made by the breaking off or gouging out of a small piece:

This glass has a chip.

4.

any of the small round disks, usually of plastic or ivory, used as tokens for money in certain gambling games, as roulette or poker; counter.

5.

Also called microchip. Electronics. a tiny slice of semiconducting material, generally in the shape of a square a few millimeters long, cut from a larger wafer of the material, on which a transistor or an entire integrated circuit is formed.

early 15c., "to chip" (intransitive, of stone); from Old English forcippian "to pare away by cutting, cut off," verbal form of cipp "small piece of wood" (see chip (n.)). Transitive meaning "to cut up, cut or trim" is from late 15c. Sense of "break off fragments" is 18c. To chip in "contribute" (1861) is American English, perhaps from card-playing. Related: Chipped; chipping. Chipped beef attested from 1826.

Meaning "counter used in a game of chance" is first recorded 1840; electronics sense is from 1962. Used for thin slices of foodstuffs (originally fruit) since 1769; specific reference to potatoes is found by 1859 (in "A Tale of Two Cities"); potato chip is attested by 1879. Meaning "piece of dried dung" first attested 1846, American English.

Chip of the old block is used by Milton (1642); earlier form was chip of the same block (1620s); more common modern phrase with off in place of of is early 20c. To have a chip on one's shoulder is 1830, American English, from the custom of a boy determined to fight putting a wood chip on his shoulder and defying another to knock it off.

chip

noun

A flat piece of dung (1848+)

verb

To hit a short, usually high shot onto the green (1920s+ Golf)

To use a drug or drugs clandestinely while abstaining from using the drug for which one is being treated or is undergoing psychotherapy: The men and women of the group also look at the man who is chipping. There is some palpable dismay(1960s+ Narcotics)